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Thursday, 9 December 2010

Office Ettiquette

No-one wants to work. Everyone would rather get free food and live in free houses, not having to worry about bills but, alas, life just isn’t that fair. You work, you get married, you buy a house in the suburbs, spit out some kids, lose touch with your friends, come to resent your wife and kids, begin to save all your money and dream of buying a timeshare apartment in the sun as soon as you retire at 65 and then, at 57, after finding out you didn’t get that promotion you applied for and you won’t get that 2% pay rise, you keel over at your desk and die of a heart attack. The last sound you hear is keyboards typing.

Unfortunately, this is the world we live in and it isn’t going to change. I have only been working in my new job 3 days and I am already wondering if I should just end it all now. But I can’t help but wonder that if people who work these awful jobs abide by the following rules, life would be slightly better.

• NO WHACKYNESS. As much as we all wish we weren’t here, this is a place of work. Do not cover your desk in signs like ‘You don’t have to be crazy to work here… but it helps!!!!!!’ Looking at them and laughing to yourself day after day is truly pathetic. You need to accept the fact that you are a ‘worker bee’ and are here to work, not amuse others. This also goes for novelty toys. Everyone has a life outside of work, but we don’t all force it on you. Yes, I’m sure you do like Family Guy, lots do, but that does not mean you need to have a two foot tall inflatable ‘Evil Monkey’ wearing a wig, sat on your desk. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!

• NO TALKING. As above really. I know you have a life outside of here, I do too, but I don’t want to fucking hear about it. I could write the things I give a shit about on the back of a postage stamp, and the fact that you went to see ‘Despicable Me’ last night will never be one of them. I don’t want to hear what you thought of it, I don’t want to hear if you liked it more than Up, I don’t want to know if you cried at Up, I don’t want to be involved in a show of hands around the office of ‘who else cried at Up?’ LEAVE ME ALONE. I also do not give the slightest shit about you and your partners sex life. Why is this ok to talk about in the office now?! I don’t give a shit that you fucked a guy at the weekend who had a ‘cock like a beer can’ and I don’t give a shit that you fucked ‘bonehead’ from Hollyoaks and he ‘licked his cum off you’ after. You are foul.

• NO BULLSHIT. When a group of strangers get together, they will inevitably tell stories about themselves, things they’ve done, places they’ve been. It’s just how you make conversation. But for some reason it’s different in offices, it’s not a friendly ‘I did this’ and ‘oh, I did that too’ It seems that everyone is trying to better each other and almost all of the time it’s total bullshit. For instance, the stunning conversation that greeted me this morning

‘Oh, I feel rough today, I had twelve pints last night’ ‘What? Pussy! I had 17 last night and I feel fine!’

• NO QUESTIONS. As well as not telling me things about you, don’t ask me things about me. YOU DON’T CARE. Yes, my ears hurt when I stretched them and no, they won’t go back to normal. Yes tattoos hurt, no I don’t want to see the tribal tattoo on your back and no, I don’t care that you’re getting a sleeve of old school Japanese artwork. Yes, I have played in a band, no we weren’t ‘big’ and no, you won’t of heard of us and NO, I won’t ‘burn you a cd of our tracks’. Yes I have a cat, why does it matter what she’s called? STOP FUCKING TALKING TO ME, YOU FUCKING MORON.

• WORK HUMOUR ISN’T FUNNY. ‘Hey, hey Pete, you’ll never guess what this customer just asked me? Right, she called and asked for a valuation, so I asked for the plot number. She gave me it, but I couldn’t find it… I was looking for it for five minutes before I realised, she’d given me the county reference number, RATHER THAN the plot number!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA’ … Good one. No, no, I get it, I’m just not laughing because I have an ulcer, no, really it’s funny, you don’t need to tell me again. No, I got it, DON’T TELL ME AGAIN.